Pete's Irish Lighthouses: Mine Head, Waterford

Monday, September 12, 2022

Mine Head, Waterford

The magnificent lighthouse at Mine Head in the county of Waterford should really be more well known than it is. A major sea-light on the south coast of Ireland, it has the highest elevation of any of Ireland's current lighthouses - 87 meters - and in 1851, along with Ballycotton, helped to fill in a large swathe of black coast between Roches Point and Hook Head. Yet it is said that even locals are sometimes unaware of its existence, located on a largely human-free headland at the end of a tortuous route of tiny country lanes. Indeed, when last I was there in 2008, when Google Maps had never even registered in my Luddite head, I completely failed to find it, having to make do with a middle-distance view over many fields.

This time around, I was more successful. Last time I had heeded all the 'Private Property - trespassers will be disembowelled' signs but Google Maps is the God who knows everything and He led me carefully down a pot-holed road that threatened the tyres on my car at every turn. It really is a beautiful lighthouse, its broad black stripe added in the mid twentieth century and it appears in excellent condition, as do the lightkeepers' cottages. Richard Taylor, in his beautifully written but boringly titled "The Lighthouses of Ireland" says that it was a two-keeper light during the summer but a three-keeper light during the long winter nights.